Berny Sèbe

From Post-Colonialism to Cosmopolitan Nation-Building? British and French Imperial Heroes in Twenty-First-Century Africa

The independence of African colonies generally turned imperial heroes into unwanted memories of a bygone age. However, half a century later, the pantheon of European heroes of the colonial era seems to be enjoying a new lease of life in sub-Saharan Africa under the impulse of a variety of factors linked to local religious beliefs, global tourism or new approaches in the construction of post-colonial national identities. This article argues that the rebirth of imperial heroes in Africa reveals a deep process of renegotiation of nation-building narratives, moving away from post-colonialism and towards a post-racial form of cosmopolitanism.

In the Shadow of the Algerian War: The United States and the Common Organisation of Saharan Regions (OCRS), 1957–62

The traumatic decolonisation of Algeria has tended to overshadow more peaceful transfers of power elsewhere in the French African Empire. This is particularly so in the case of the Sahara, where local populations accommodated themselves exceptionally well to colonial rule after the First World War. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the political stability of the region, combined with its newly discovered energetic resources and strategic value as a nuclear testing site, led the French to reflect upon ways of preparing for the Sahara a future separate from the rest of Algeria, the fate of which was increasingly clear as de Gaulle had no choice but to gear his policy towards self-determination. The Common Organisation of Saharan Regions (OCRS) intended to merge all French territories in the Sahara, in an attempt to guarantee prolonged French control over the region while justifying it on the grounds that oil revenue was to finance the development of the areas where extraction took place. The widely publicised developmental concerns of the initiative were at odds with its neo-colonial undertones, and it could not have escaped the attention of the two successive US administrations that had to deal with the controversial question of their position vis-à-vis a NATO ally embattled in what seemed a lost colonial cause. The role of the US in post-war decolonisation processes has been given more prominence in recent historiography, but it had never been studied in the case of the Sahara, in spite of repeated French fears of American interest in Saharan oil resources at the time of the Algerian war. Based on State Department archives, this paper throws lights upon an often-forgotten aspect of Franco-American relations in the context of the decolonisation of European empires.

Decolonising Imperial Heroes: Britain and France

The heroes of the British and French empires stood at the vanguard of the vibrant cultures of imperialism that emerged in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. Yet imperial heroes did not disappear after 1945 as British and French flags were lowered around the world. On the contrary, their reputations underwent a variety of metamorphoses in both the former metropoles and the former colonies. The introduction to this special issue of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History presents an overview of the changing history and historiography of imperial heroes half a century after the end of empire.

Mastering the Niger. James MacQueen’s African Geography and the Struggle Over Atlantic Slavery

As we know only too well, history is written by the victors. This pattern has frequently been analysed in the relationship between colonizer and colonized, and one of the remits of postcolonial studies has been precisely to redress this imbalance. However, much less has been written about the ‘vanquished’ in the moral or intellectual realm of Western controversies about the ‘rest’. What happened to those who defended lost causes or, even worse, sided with those who would go down in history as the villains? James MacQueen is an archetypal example in that regard, and the study of the meanders of his personal, professional and intellectual itinerary teaches us a lot in terms of the circles of influence and seats of power and prestige in an Atlantic world in which Britain was involved in a triangular relationship with both Africa and the Caribbean. A proslavery campaigner to safeguard his own interests (not as a slave owner himself but as a manager on at least two slave plantations in the Caribbean), MacQueen was clearly on the losing side once slavery had been abolished in 1833. An armchair geographer, he defended a theory about the course of the Niger River which was right but was never accepted by the geographical establishment. In short, MacQueen defended the right geographical theory but had the wrong credentials. This was enough for him to be relegated in the backwaters of the history of Britain in West Africa and the Caribbean, in spite of his repeated efforts to secure patronage and a place for his name in posterity. James MacQueen produced a series of maps of Africa between the 1820s and 1840s, aimed at throwing light upon the so-called ‘Niger problem’ (i.e. the question of the start, course and termination of the Niger River), whilst at the same advancing ambitious plans for the development of British commercial interest in the region. With his A Geographical and Commercial View of Northern Central Africa (1821) and his New Map of Africa (1841), MacQueen not only argued that the mouth of the Niger was located in the Gulf of Guinea (which went against three competing theories at the time), but he also defended the idea of the commercial penetration of the area. Mastering the Niger is not intended to be a biography of a mostly forgotten actor (despite the volume and accuracy of his works) in the development of British geographical knowledge of Africa. David Lambert intends to use MacQueen’s ‘published writing, correspondence, maps, and ideas, as well as their reception and consequences, as a lens through which to examine the entanglements of Atlantic slavery, African exploration, and British geography’ (pp. 16–17). MacQueen tried to play a leading role in pushing the agenda for the exploration, colonization and economic exploitation of West Africa, reflecting an interest in the region which was not only geographical but also commercial and imperial. Yet, his theory was actively dismissed by other pro-imperial actors of the time, such as James Barrow, who was ‘the central figure in coordinating and promoting British exploratory activity in Africa’ (p. 123). Lambert examines the wider socio-cultural background and political positioning of MacQueen as a way of explaining his lack of success in spite of the geographical accuracy of his Niger theory. This contextualizing effort allows Lambert to highlight MacQueen’s role as a prolific contributor to the proimperial Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and to remind us that he had been noted for his earlier attempts to discredit efforts to create the colony of Sierra Leone for liberated slaves and, above all, that he has been a figurehead among pro-slavery campaigners. He had shown quite clearly his penchant for opportunism when he agreed to become involved in the 1841–2 ‘Niger expedition’ organized by his old antislavery rival Thomas Fowell Buxton. Whilst it represented the most accomplished implementation of the plans for the Niger River which MacQueen had been advocating for over two decades, it made for an unlikely encounter between a liberal humanitarian and a conservative former pro-slavery campaigner. MacQueen’s life, role and relentless opportunism provides a case-study through which the circuits and networks across the Atlantic, and trans-Atlantic interests encompassing both the Caribbean and Africa, are revealed. MacQueen’s involvement in a variety of commercial initiatives, such as the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company trans-Atlantic steamship service to the West Indies, also demonstrates the close intertwining of commercial, intellectual and personal pursuits. It also shows the role of maps, map-making and geographical discourse in the entangled histories of slavery, exploration and empire at a time when the exploration of Africa was contributing to the structuring of the geographical discipline and the controversy about slavery was fuelling public debate. It is hardly surprising that those who lost their fight in favour of the slave trade should have been less widely represented than their humanitarian opponents who won the confrontation. More scholarly attention has been paid to abolitionists than to pro-slavery campaigners, of whom MacQueen was one of The Cartographic Journal Vol. 53 No. 1 pp. 91–97 February 2016

Justifying ‘New Imperialism’: The Making of Colonial Heroes, 1857–1902

This chapter looks at the role that imperial heroes played, directly or indirectly, as a means of justifying the phase of large-scale British expansion in the second half of the nineteenth century, which relied heavily upon military activity. The years between the 1850s and the First World War saw the expansion or consolidation of the British Empire on the Indian sub-continent as well as in Asia, Africa, North America and the Pacific. As the world seemed to shrink as a result of technical progress, and under the influence of views inspired by Charles Darwin’s evolutionist theories, a ‘ steeplechase’ race1 for overseas territories seemed inevitable, due to the shared desire of Western nations to secure a ‘place in the sun’.